Heeding the Call

I just got off the phone after the weekly Thursday night conference call that my group does.  Tonight's subject was asking questions.  The key phrase of the night, which I love, is "Seek to understand before you seek to be understood."

There was a discussion about the best way to handle a conversation, and to guide it toward the Reliv products, but NOT before understanding exactly what the person is dealing with, how it's affecting them, and what else they've tried for it.  Even after that, it isn't about selling the products so much as offering them hope.  If they've tried X, Y, and Z and on down the vitamin aisle and nothing is working, it's not about selling them a product, it's about offering hope.  I have something that might benefit you.  I don't know if it will.  But what if it does?

During the course of the call, I found myself in a role-playing situation I did not know beforehand I'd be doing.  Luckily, I perform in improv shows semi-regularly, and I'm far from shy in performance situations, so I jumped in.

What I thought was interesting, though, is that I found myself getting sincerely invested in the other person.  The other person, of course, was fictional, and was being played by a man who is already taking the products and doesn't have the sort of pain he was complaining about.  Even so, though, I started to forget that after a while and started sincerely caring for this person.

And then I remembered something that I haven't thought about in years.

I used to be that guy that anyone could come to and talk to.  And I'd listen.  And I'd be there, and I'd offer hope and make the other person feel like the world wasn't coming to an end.  Things could get better.  As time went on, though, people stopped coming to me.  Maybe it was me, maybe it was them, but I just stopped being the person they could talk to.  And I missed it.  I missed being that light in people's lives.

Now I have a chance to be that person again.  The person who can listen and offer hope.  And if each person I help can offer the same help to more people, I'll get to know that an exponential amount of lives has been helped by just talking and listening and seeking to understand before I seek to be understood.